Happy People Have Faith

There is a "law" that governs whether or not God's existence makes a difference in our lives. It's the difference in God "being there" verses "God being there for me." That "law" is what the bible calls "faith."

The way it works is that God can be there, but until you have a relationship with him, there is no connection, and you don't experience the benefits of the relationship. But when you do make a move to connect with Him, what the Bible refers to as putting your "faith" in Him, then many, many things begin to occur that can change your life, health, well-being, and happiness. And the research validates this over and over, showing that people who are involved in their faith are physically and emotionally the better for it. As happiness researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky puts it, religious people are "happier, healthier, and recover better after traumas than non-religious people (Sonya Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness, 228). One example of dealing with trauma is an eighteen-month follow-up study of parents who had lost babies to sudden infant death syndrome. In that study, the parents who attended regular church services and said that their faith was important to them were coping better, showing less depression, and had greater well-being than non-religious parents (S.L. The How Of Happiness p 228).

Numerous other studies have shown the positive relationship of faith to physical health and even longevity. One study showed how "dedicated members of churches had up to seven years greater life expectancy than people who were not members of churches (Alan Carr, Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness and Human Strengths, 222). Faith and seeing God as a partner in coping with life has been shown to help depression and lower suicide rates (Kenneth Pargament, The Psychology of Religion and Coping). The list goes on, but the findings are pretty clear: we do well when we are involved in a life of faith.

But involvement is the key. I do not mean doing a bunch of meaningless religious rituals, but involvement from your heart. It's a faith commitment. Faith is just another word for trust. It means that we depend on God for a number of things that make life work better and, thereby, add to our happiness. As Jesus said, when we come to him, we can have life "more abundantly (John 10:10). as Moses told us, when we follow God, it will be "for our good," as he put it (Deut. 6:24). The Hebrew word we translate as "good" or "proper" actually means "good" in a very big sense. It means things like "best, bountiful, cheerful, at ease, merry, precious, and so forth." Those are all words that describe happiness and well-being.

But just like a lamp must be plugged into the power source if it is to give light, we must be plugged into God through exercising faith in a trusting relationship. How do we do that? The amazing thing about faith is that it is so simple a child could do it. Just as children depend on a mother for love and security, we do the same thing with God. Talk to Him; tell Him that you want to know Him better. When you have a struggle or experience stress, tell God and ask Him to help you with it. Go through your day in a dialogue with God, trusting Him for all that you don't understand. If this is the first time you have ever considered a relationship with God, look at it the way Jesus described it when he said it is like being "born" again:

I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again (John 3:3).

Your spiritual life has a beginning, and Jesus said it begins by believing that He is God, that He came to earth to show us what God is like, and to show us that if we will trust him, we will have forgiveness and the kind of well-being that the research describes.